Essential Reading

Now directly linked, a must see video. Watch as a young Jew demolishes the standard notion of the Holocaust, highlighting its contradictions and flaws with logic and clarity. An hour long video of absolutely essential viewing

How President Ahmadinejad’s words were mistranslated and deliberately distorted. So that the term “wiped off the map” has now become synonymous with the Iranian leader’s attitude to Israel – even though he never uttered those words

Our web hosts were threatened with legal action after lawyers representing none other than Dov Zakheim himself claimed this article was “defamatory.” Due to an oversight the article was not fully removed so read it before Zakheim gets us shut down

In Andernach about 50,000 prisoners of all ages were held in an open field surrounded by barbed wire. The men I guarded had no shelter and no blankets; many had no coats. They slept in the mud, wet and cold, with inadequate slit trenches for excrement.

Jack Bernstein was a rarity, an American Zionist who ‘returned’ to Israel, not for a holiday but to live and die in Israel building a Jewish nation. What makes him almost one of a kind, however, was his ability to see through the sham of Zionism

Bill Ryan talks to a former City of London insider who participated in a meeting where the elite’s plans for depopulation were discussed. The meeting, which took place in 2005, also discussed a planned financial collapse

John Shafthauer — The Canary May 3, 2017

In January 2017, the BBC Trust found thatBBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg had breached the corporation’s impartiality and accuracy guidelines. The breach was in relation to reporting on Jeremy Corbyn. And now, in the run-up to the general election, Kuenssberg has once more been accused of a failure in accuracy. This time, in relation to a tweet comparing Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May’s election campaigns.

Both main party leaders so far have done invite only events + a bit of public access

Accuracy

The tweet followed on from two others. All three together reading:

While we contemplate journey home…catching up on spat about access to PM on one of campaign visits today. Not ideal, but not unusual at all for parties to limit some parts of visits, PM did about 10 mins of public walkabout today + did interviews. Both main party leaders so far have done invite only events + a bit of public access.

Firstly, the tweets are not connected in a thread. So any context given to the third tweet by the first two would have been lost on anyone who only read the final part. And the engagement on the tweets suggests that many more people saw the third than the first. Especially as a screengrab is also being shared on Facebook.

Although it’s common that people make mistakes in conveying information, these mistakes should ideally be kept to a minimum by people whose job it is to convey information.

The second issue is clarity. What the tweet is supposed to say is that both leaders have done some events which were invite only and some which were public access. Most people have read it as if it says both leaders have only done private access events while also meeting the public outside events:

This is demonstrably untrue. We have a catalogue of evidence to show Jeremy Corbyn hold open invitation events & go walkabout with public. https://t.co/sEenOMtk8C

The issue is again one of conveying information precisely. Twitter is notorious for losing nuance due to the short message length. But at the same time, no one is forcing journalists to pass information on by tweet. And if confusion is caused, there is always the option to clarify later. Something which Kuenssberg has not yet done.

A fair comparison?

The other problem is that, even with the correct understanding, the two campaigns really don’t compare. It’s accurate to say that both leaders have done invite-only events. But it doesn’t convey how those events have panned out.

For a start, the ‘spat’ that Kuenssberg referred to revolved around journalists in Cornwall being banned from filming. They were also shut in a room while May gave her speech. And even the conservative Spectatorhas noted:

Journalists from local papers are being kept in rooms toprevent them from – gasp – filming an interview with the Prime Minister for their websites. Other events take place away from the media entirely, with Theresa May cocooned safely among Tory activists: the political equivalent of a tree falling in an empty forest.

Reporting

To be fair to Laura Kuenssberg, her tweets were accurate – albeit poorly worded. The problem is that, without nuance, they do not convey what’s really happening. Because simply saying that Corbyn and May have both done private/public events is like saying Sir Ian McKellen and Danny Dyer are both actors. A statement which is technically true, yet fails to convey that only one of the two is making a good job of it.